The goal of the proposed research is to identify the life experiences, personality characteristics, and current situational factors associated with highly successful coping and adaptation among older black women. The primary source of data will be sevently-five oral history transcripts collected for the Black Women Oral History Project conducted by the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College. These transcripts are based on interviews conducted with a unique sample of highly-educated black women, age 60 or older, selected for their extraordinary achievements and contributions. The data from these women will be coded in a scientific fashion so that comparisons can be made both among the interviewees, and with six other samples of older people (men and women, black and white), studied by social scientists and currently housed at the Radcliffe Data Resource and Research Center. The rearch strategy employed in this project will aim to identify those aspects of coping and adaptation which are unique to successful older black women, as well as those which are common to other subgroups (poor black women, successful white women, black and white men, etc.) The project should result in a lasting resource for social science research on minority aging (computer-accessible data from the Black Women Oral History Project sample), carefuly delineated findings about the personal and social antecedents of successful adaptation within particular groups, and across groups of aging adults, and impressive positive models of successful aging in older black women. Because the research group is interdisciplinary, results will be disseminated within a wide range of disciplines as well as to interested policy-makers and educators.